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Milken-Motsepe Green Energy Prize

Meet the Finalists: Stories from the Field: Milken-Motsepe Prize in Green Energy

The Milken-Motsepe Prize in Green Energy competition launched at the Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit in November 2022. Aiming to reward innovators working to expand access to reliable, affordable, sustainable energy in Africa, more than 160 teams from around the world entered, and 20 semifinalist teams from 36 countries were chosen to prove the effectiveness of their ideas in field tests. Five finalists, including the teams below, were selected to advance in the competition and deploy their technologies in a live demonstration in South Africa in February 2024.

In addition to receiving funds to test their innovations and a variety of special benefits, finalists are competing for the $1 million Grand Prize, which will be announced at the Milken Institute Global Conference in May 2024.

Meet the finalists, and learn more about what inspired them to participate in this one-of-a-kind competition program here.

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Africa’s Green Economy Summit: Milken-Motsepe Green Energy Prize Winner: “Aftrak Solves Economic and Green Energy Challenges and Produces A Zero Carbon Energy Solution Accessible To Nearly Everyone”

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN WILSON, AFTRAK PROJECT LEAD, THE WINNERS OF THIS YEAR’S MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE OF $1-MILLION. HE IS ALSO A LECTURER IN SYSTEMS AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY. AFTRAK IS A GROUNDBREAKING INITIATIVE THAT COMBINES SOLAR MICROGRIDS AND TAILORED TRACTORS TO EMPOWER SMALLHOLDER FARMERS ACROSS AFRICA. IT AIMS TO SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE CROP YIELDS AND SMALLHOLDER INCOMES WHILE PROVIDING ACCESS TO CLEAN, GREEN ELECTRICITY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING THE MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE! CAN YOU SHARE A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR INNOVATION AND ITS IMPACT ON EXPANDING ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY IN AFRICA? We’re obviously thrilled to bits to win the Milken-Motsepe Prize for Green Energy. Our innovation is around a socio-economic solution to both energy access, but also agriculture and food scarcity. So, we have a system that comprises of three main parts. The first one is a microgrid, and we put loads of work into this microgrid.

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Africa’s Green Economy Summit: Milken-Motsepe Green Energy Prize Runner-Up: “Omnivat’s ecosystem of solutions tackles an ecosystem of challenges typically found in Sub-Saharan Africa

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH RANDY KABUYA, ENGINEER AND CO-FOUNDER OF OMNIVAT, THE RUNNERS-UP IN THIS YEAR’S MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE. THE COMPANY WON $250,000 FOR ITS CONTAINERISED ELECTRICITY GENERATION AND STORAGE SYSTEM, WHICH PROVIDES CLEAN WATER, CLEAN ENERGY, AND WI-FI-ENRICHED BY VIRTUAL REALITY SUPPORT FOR REMOTE COMMUNITIES. CONGRATS ON BEING THE RUNNERS-UP IN THE MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE! CAN YOU SHARE A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR INNOVATION AND ITS IMPACT ON EXPANDING ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY IN AFRICA? For myself and 1.2 billion people, sub-Saharan Africa is a place that we call home. But sadly though, half that number here don’t have access to electricity, while the other half have to contend with frequent power cuts. These are businesses and residents. So essentially what you see is that the centralised electricity supply and generation system either does not work or is unreliable for those that it’s actually serving, or it simply is unfeasible for those

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Engineering News: Award-winning Omnivat to roll out pilots of containerised electricity generation and storage system

Renewable energy technology company Omnivat Tech, the creator of an award-winning containerised electricity generation and storage system, aims to deploy three in-field pilot plants in the coming months. The company intends to trial different use cases, including health facility support, backup power and community-owned models. “We are a pan-African team with a pan-African vision. We will deploy our initial systems in South Africa and will be developing a pipeline across sub-Saharan Africa. We are open to public- and private-sector customers and intend to collaborate with both to meet the needs of communities, facilities and businesses,” says Omnivat.   Read the full article here

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